Ex-Polizei Porsche 356C Cabriolet
Sean Rooks | October 11, 2024
Back in March, I wrote a Good Find Friday post highlighting a Porsche 356A Police Car for sale in Italy that required a complete restoration. That car is still for sale, as of today’s publication. Not everyone who loves special vehicles wants to undertake the expense of restoring a car, of course. If you prefer instant gratification, then today’s 1964 Porsche 356C Police Car might be for you.
There’s reasonably good history on how the Porsche 356 and 911 convertibles and Targas were adopted by the Dutch police force, such as this nice (but short) piece on the Connecticut Valley Region of the Porsche Club of America’s website. Much less information is available regarding plain old German police use of these cars, other than it’s clear from historical photographs that they certainly used Porsche 356s for traffic and other police duty.
I’m told that Ludvigsen and Christophorus have covered the vehicles and their equipment over the years, but those writings are not easily found online. Perhaps digitizing these works is an interesting project for me to consider taking on in retirement!
Today’s car is said to be a Porsche 356 built by the factory for service as a police car in the Freiburg State Police Directorate. It is being sold by a dealer in Germany for an undisclosed price.
No documentation is shared to support the car’s provenance, at least on the listing dealer’s website, but of course if I were a potential buyer I’d like to see a Kardex or other evidence to prove the car’s history. While it would be extremely difficult to replicate all of the police features on this car from scratch, you never know!
In terms of the car itself, the bodywork on this example appears quite lovely, with good gaps, glossy paint, and shiny brightwork. Police-specific exterior features include a blue rotating beacon mounted to the windshield frame, a loudspeaker mounted to the rear decklid and a “Stop” light mounted to the rear bumper. The front bumper seems to sit just a little high, as the space between it and the turn signals is minimal.
The Porsche 356C in stock configuration featured a 75 horsepower flat-four engine mated to a 4-speed synchromesh gearbox. The listing for this car states the engine is a 616/26, which is very interesting because that corresponds to a later SC-spec engine fitted to a select number of Porsche 356C Cabriolets built for the Dutch police in 1966. The engine number isn’t shown.
The overall appearance of the engine matches the 95hp SC engine, which is the type I believe was most ordered by the police force. I’m sure they could use all the horsepower they could get for the German autobahns. The engine looks pretty tidy, with nice finish colors and a few little errors like the painted oil canister inlet elbow and the Bosch 12v sticker on the regulator instead of its typical location on the coil.
All Porsche 356C cars were built with ATE disc brakes inside 15×4.5 steel wheels. The stock car featured front and rear torsion bar suspension with trailing arms in the front and swing axles derived from the Volkswagen in the rear.
The interior is festooned with police-specific gear, including a radio and various switchgear for the warning lights, sirens, fog lights and PA functions. A fire extinguisher is mounted ahead of the shift lever, which I always thought was a good place except that it intrudes in the airy feel of the footbox of a 356. The seats appear to be in good condition, and as they lack perforations are likely the leather seats usually specified on Cabriolets.
Behind the steering wheel in good condition with a deluxe horn ring are the gauges, which appear to be in beautiful condition. Of note is that the tachometer appears to support the engine being an SC, as it has a redline at 6200rpm (for the electric tach) with a max rpm of 7,000.
Other notable features are the European-specific heating system on the engine to provide more heat (likely helpful for the poor officers serving duty in this thing during the Winter months, and Euro tail light colors and reflector positions. Interestingly, there is no badging on the car nor a fixture for mounting a license plate on the rear. No photos of the car with the top up are presented, which seems like a miss.
Final Thoughts
These rare police Porsches come up for auction at fairly rare intervals, making it challenging to assign a valuation to this beautiful Porsche 356C Cabriolet Polizei. Porsche 356 SC Cabriolets bring around $170,000 on average, with a range dependent on condition from $130,000-$200,000.
As noted in my previous Porsche 356 police car find, the last one of these to sell at auction hammered at €235,750 or $257,402. Based on the condition of this car, its rare provenance, and current market conditions I’m guessing the asking price is in the neighborhood of $275,000.
With a car this expensive, I’d recommend an independent evaluation by an expert before pulling the trigger. In my opinion, if it checks out and you have the means, it would make an excellent addition to a Porsche collection and a killer attendee at Luftgekühlt or any high-end concours.
Wolf and Mare provides car finding, appraisal and auction services for sellers and buyers of collector European cars. We also provide importation services. Give us a call or drop us a line!